Ring of Swimming
| Ring of Swimming | |||||||||||||||
| ring of swim · swim ring · Hugo's swim ring · Cholmondeley's ring | |||||||||||||||
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The Ring of Swimming is a standard 5e wondrous item, table-canon as Hugo’s session-2 random-recap reward per Hugo’s own callback at [3]: “Nick gave me a random magic item. I don’t know why, but that was back when you still used to do random magic items for a recap, and it just so happened that random magic item was a ring of swimming. … It was like session two.” Its single property is that the wearer’s walking speed becomes a 30-foot swim speed (the 30-foot figure is what Hugo invokes on-table at [3]; the published 5e ring grants 40-foot, flagged as a minor table-versus-RAW discrepancy, not load-bearing). The ring sat unused and largely unmentioned across the campaign until the catfish destroyed the party’s skiff in s18; it then became suddenly load-bearing in the open-ocean swim to the Aurelian coast, with Hugo using it to ferry Steven (a halfling with no swim speed) to shore on his back [2].
Overview
A standard Ring of Swimming. Table-canon as Hugo’s, per his own recall at [3]: a random-recap reward awarded to him by the DM in session 2. The on-transcript s2 award scene at [1] reads as awarded to Cholmondeley (who accepted with “Okay, I will take that. I don’t know when I’m going to be swimming, but I will take that. Better be prepared than not”), but Hugo’s table-canon claim at [3] has the ring in his hands and being actively used. The discrepancy is flagged for DM clarification; the canon-as-played in s18 is that the ring is Hugo’s.
Mechanically, Hugo invokes the ring at [3] as granting a 30-foot swim speed (“I can swim with 30 foot swim speed, because I’ve got a ring of swimming”). The published 5e Ring of Swimming grants a 40-foot swim speed; the 30-foot figure on-table is either a Hugo-misremembering, a 2024-PHB variant figure, or a DM-side house tweak. Not load-bearing; logged here for traceability.
Session 18: the ring resurfaces
The ring had not been referenced on transcript for many sessions when the catfish encounter at [4] destroyed the party’s skiff and dropped the four party members into open ocean two hours from coast. With the boat in two pieces and all wooden flotsam underwater [5], the swim problem was acute: Steven (halfling, no swim speed) could not make it under his own power. Caelumn cast Alter Self for gills and a swim speed; Mike and Terry both have racial one-hour underwater breath (Vedalken and tortle). Hugo’s solution was to deactivate his Winged Boots to save flight time for elsewhere, recall the long-forgotten Ring of Swimming, and use the resulting 30-foot swim speed to ferry Steven on his back to shore:
“yeah I’m just gonna deactivate them and save the rest of the time for elsewhere, but I can swim with 30 foot swim speed, because I’ve got a ring of swimming, so I will just use that, plus I don’t need to breathe. … Nick gave me a random magic item. I don’t know why, but that was back when you still used to do random magic items for a recap, and it just so happened that random magic item was a ring of swimming. … It was like session two.” Hugo, [3]
The ring saved the swim. Without it, Hugo would have been on Winged Boots only (Steven on back, no swim-speed margin) and Steven would have been lost to the open ocean or forced into a far slower flight-only ferry. The table reaction was that this was a callback the players had forgotten until it became suddenly load-bearing: exactly the kind of late-stage payoff a session-2 random-recap reward is supposed to enable.
Status as of session 18
Active. On Hugo. Used continuously through the open-ocean swim to the Aurelian coast landfall on 843-03-30. Not removed since.
See also
References
- ^ Session 2, line 46-50 — DM awards a Ring of Swimming as a recap-roll reward. Transcript shows Cholmondeley accepting; Hugo at s18 L1078 reports the same award went to him. The two readings cannot both be literally true: flag for DM clarification; canon-as-played in s18 is that the ring is Hugo's.
- ^ Session 18, line 1049-1080 — Ring resurfaces into play after the catfish destroys the skiff; Hugo uses it for a 30-foot swim speed to ferry Steven to the Aurelian coast.
- ^ Session 18, line 1078 — Hugo's table-canon claim of origin: 'Nick gave me a random magic item ... that was back when you still used to do random magic items for a recap ... it was like session two'.
- ^ Session 18, line 574-1001 — Inline citation.
- ^ Session 18, line 1044-1047 — Inline citation.